Keep Evolving

be healthy

It has definitely been awhile since I’ve last wrote something. I chalk it up to being “too busy” with finishing the end of the semester with grad school (damn lit review) and my job always being incredibly busy at the end of the semester. Usually a something I want to write about comes to me in the shower, while I’m driving or daydreaming. I haven’t felt all that inspired to write anything lately, but with it being the last day in 2014, I figure that I should probably write <em>something</em>.

What’s that? You want another cliche post about end of the year reflections and hopes and dreams for the upcoming year? Cool, I’m here to please.

I’ve already done a lot of reflecting this year as the year was progressing. I will say 2014 was an interesting one. I accomplished many things I’m quite proud about. I lost 30 lbs this year. I became a runner (but really slacked the last three months). I fell in love with my job and my students. It’s weird that I’ve gone two weeks without them so far and I miss them terribly (don’t tell them that). I’m really glad to have let some ideas and people go, but happier that I’ve let some new people into my life and developed new thoughts and ideas for the future.

The greatest thing 2014 has given is books. Lot of books. Specifically, young adult novels. For my graduate program, it required me to read a lot of YA novels and it made me wish I read when I was younger. It would have helped me process being an awkward teenager and maybe I would have made different decisions. I’m glad to being YA now though and I plan to use these books all throughout my career in some way. Reading makes me a feel a way that no one has (or can).

As I look to 2015, all I really want to do is continue to make improvements on what I’ve done in 2014. I would to lose another 30, I would love to read more books and I want to stay dedicated to my happiness. It’s too easy for me get angry, jump to conclusions and get down on myself. It pulls me down to this dark and twisty place (bonus points for knowing that reference) and it’s so hard to get out. The only way out is to be good to myself and the only way to avoid going there is to be good to myself. So, 2015 will the be year of being good to myself.

I’ve made a list that I’ll make copies of and leave places like my office and apartment as daily reminders of how to be good to myself:

Eat & sleep well. Indulge a little.

Enjoy the little things.

Celebrate the little victories even if I’m my own cheering section.

Stop comparing – what other people think of me or do is none of my business.

Exercise regularly for a whole year.

Stop texting so much and call more often.

Let the little things go. If it doesn’t matter in five years then it doesn’t matter.